OUT TO LUNCH

Like many South Africans I felt duty bound to pay attention at nine pm last Sunday after a family meeting was called by President Ramaphosa to reveal the names of his new cabinet. I normally go to bed at nine at this time of year and read. This may sound very old fogeyish but there is a method in my madness.

Firstly the bedroom is easier to heat than the rest of the open plan living area which is warmed by a very efficient wood burning fire.This means that a log or two has to be put on the fire every fifteen minutes or so and, while the heat and the leaping flames are very pleasant to experience, I am acutely aware that winter isn’t over yet and so am nervously watching the log supply.

An additional problem is that a roaring fire is conducive to a large brandy and the drinks cabinet is located perilously close to the fire. You know how it is, the first brandy goes down well and so you throw a couple of more logs on the fire which is the perfect excuse for another brandy. And so the cycle might go on.

Since I haven’t had DSTV for about seven years now there didn’t seem much point in hanging around the family room and wasting both logs and brandy, so I moved into the bedroom which was warm as toast thanks to the oil filled radiator which has been serving me well for the past thirty two years. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

I fired up my iPhone just before nine and tuned into News24 for the Presidential live broadcast. At fifteen minutes past nine there was still no signal so I reset the fibre connection thinking it must be a fault at my end. But all sorts of other news outlets popped up with no problem so I went back onto News24 which was frozen in time promising the nine o’clock family meeting anytime soon.

Nine thirty came and I was seriously thinking about sneaking another brandy into the bedroom but Mrs B has the nose of a bloodhound and can smell strong liquor at fifty metres. Having just wasted thirty minutes waiting for the Presidential address when I could have been reading a book or tackling Wordle I now felt that I dare not risk missing out because surely the damn family meeting must start at any minute. So I tuned back into News24 on the iPhone only to find the same frozen screen.

The family meeting finally started an hour late by which time I was quite happy to turn the iPhone off and accept that I would only know the exciting news the next morning. By the time all the waffle and ‘all protocols observed’ bullshit was done with it would be getting on for ten thirty before we heard anything interesting and, since I’m a man who needs my eight hours, I managed to contain my excitement.

This late starting of important announcements, family meetings and press briefings is a regular feature of the ANC and others and suggests to the more cynical that they have no regard for punctuality. Accused number one frequently turns up for rallies several hours late.

It’s not as if they get stuck in the traffic. Most of them have blue light escorts who, occasionally, beat the living daylights out of anyone who gets in their way. The more generously disposed chuckle quietly to themselves and explain that they are operating on ‘African time’, which is a unique and rather lovable quirk peculiar to the dark continent.

A more realistic analysis though might suggest that delaying a well publicised ‘family meeting’ for an hour and keeping the riff-raff waiting is a very clear middle finger to the curse of colonisation and the imperialist obsession with clocks and their works. Look at the Trooping of the Colour for example if you need proof of anally retentive time keeping. Here’s the schedule for this year.

10:00am - Troops begin to gather outside ahead of the Trooping the Colour parade

10:30am - Trooping the Colour officially begins as the Royal Family leave Buckingham Palace and travel down The Mall

11:00am - As the clock chimes 11:00am at Horse Guards Parade, King Charles III will give a royal salute, followed by a 41-gun salute in Green Park

11:00am onwards - King Charles III will then inspect the troops while the military band plays before the Monarch returns to his Ascot Landau carriage to travel back to Buckingham Palace.

1:00pm – The Royal Family gather on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the Red Arrows flypast.

Pitiful isn’t it? So what’s the big deal if the clock chimes eleven and the 41 gun salute comes fifteen minutes later? Or not at all because someone has forgotten to bring the guns. And the 1pm fly past over Buck House? What’s that all about then? Somebody has to work out what time everything needs to take off from Biggin Hill or wherever, calculate the distance to be flown and the speed needed to get there exactly at 1:00 pm when all the Royals are gagging for a GnT before lunch. So what’s the big deal if the planes are late or come in dribs and drabs and don’t fly in formation? This simply wouldn’t matter in Africa because we are not slaves to timekeeping (despite some having a fondness for expensive Breitling watches).

When I did check the score sheet the morning after, the first thing that struck me was the size of this new cabinet. I thought this was all supposed to be a step towards slimming down the cabinet and cutting costs but it seems that luxury car dealer principals and security companies come out as big winners this time around.

I’m not sure why we need well remunerated deputy ministers anyway. Surely if the minister dies or becomes unable to fulfil the function then the Pres just appoints a new minister. And if we don’t have a sitting minister for a couple of weeks is that such a big deal?

We seem to have stumbled along pretty well between May 26 and June 30th. Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana (generally regarded as a sound appointment) has two deputies for example. Is that a vote of no confidence in his staying power and couldn’t the same tasks be performed by civil servants for less money? If a new minister is appointed surely it would be up to the senior civil servants to brief him/her?

However, it’s not just the duplication of roles which is concerning (and yes, I know it’s political appeasement in many cases) but the existence of completely pointless ministries.

Why do we need a Minister for Tourism for example? Is the travel industry not smart enough to decide for itself that Durban is a dead duck as a tourism destination and that the Western Cape (with its clean audits and stunning vistas) is where it’s at? Surely if you are investing millions in developing tourist friendly destinations the last thing you need is input from a government that can’t even run its state owned enterprises.

Similarly, why on earth do we need a Minister of Sport? Back in the 1990’s I had a run in with Steve Tshwete who was Min of Sport at the time when I suggested that his job was just a glorious, never ending stream of freebies which allowed him to travel all over the world at tax-payer expense and get the best seats for sporting events.

Naturally, if our teams won the Minister would take the credit. If they didn’t he would just hit the buffet table as the well-padded Ngconde Balfour seems to have done when he succeeded Tshwete as Min of Sport.

If you’re going to appoint somebody as Minister of Sport at least appoint somebody who looks as though they could walk twenty metres without panting.

The appointment of the highly amusing and mercurial Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie as the new Min of Sport should certainly prove entertaining, particularly as he has allegedly vowed to make ‘spinning’ a major South African sport.

Just to be clear for those readers of a certain age this has nothing to do with wool and everything to do with reckless and dangerous driving. In his defence though Mr McKenzie has acknowledged that he is on the plump side and has signed up for a marathon.

The dumbest sounding ministry though (and the most useless) must be the absurdly named Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, thereby implying that the needs of women and youth are barely distinguishable from persons with disabilities and aren’t worthy of demanding a ministry of their own. With our world beating levels of youth unemployment I should have thought that might have been an urgent priority.